Chrysler Crank Harmonic Balancer Sleve on 2040-parts.com

Nissan to alter design philosophy to attract females and younger buyers

Nissan will transform its design philosophy in an attempt to reengage with its female and younger buyers, the carmaker's director of Global Upstream Planning Rachel Nguyen has revealed. Speaking at the Nissan 360 event in the US, she announced Nissan is planning new gender-specific concepts to explore what women expect from their vehicles. "When we study the ideal vehicle partner qualities that women customers want, we hear that they want vehicles with effective technologies, especially intuitive navigation systems," she said.

Smart Fortwo Lightshine launches

Yet another Smart Limited Edition - the Smart Fortwo Lightshine You have to hand it to Mercedes – they don’t give up on Smart (or Maybach – another expensive departure). They keep churning out new cars (well, endless new limited editions, anyway) despite sales that seem to keep falling. Last year (2010) saw Smart sales in the UK fall by 8.5% and their sales last month (December 2010) were a woeful 57% down on December 2009.

Webinars: Visualization & Digital Effect Creation with Autodesk

Car Design News hosted Visualization & Digital Effect Creation with Autodesk on February 9, 2011. This webinar explored how effective communication is key to 'selling' a particular design internally, and provided information on how to get your vision across using Autodesk Showcase, with an emphasis on materials, cross-sections and environments. We all know that a beautifully-rendered image captures the emotion of a design idea; convincing animations and digital effects place the product in a realistic environment and depict consumer interaction, making the design credible and relevant to the target consumer.